1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fiber optics, fiber lasers, and fiber amplifiers, and more specifically, it relates to a rare-earth-doped fiber that, when optically pumped, has significantly higher gain for one linear polarization state than for the orthogonal state.
2. Description of Related Art
Introduction
Single-mode, rare-earth-doped fiber lasers and amplifiers are increasingly used in applications requiring compact, rugged, electrically efficient optical sources with high beam quality. Stable, linear polarization is required for many of these applications, including fiber-optic gyroscopes, interferometric fiber sensors, pumping of optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers, nonlinear frequency conversion, construction of mode-locked fiber lasers and narrow-linewidth fiber sources, polarization multiplexing, and most designs of phase or amplitude modulators. Conventional fiber sources have a time-varying (in general, elliptical) output polarization because of birefringence in the optical fiber and its variation with thermal and mechanical fluctuations.
The prior art includes a variety of methods for addressing fiber birefringence in both passive fibers and active fibers (i.e., fibers with optical gain). A discussion of the prior art provides the context for the present invention. For simplicity, most of the discussion will assume a step-index refractive-index profile for the fiber; this assumption affects some of the quantitative details, but the main conclusions of the analysis and the relevant design considerations will apply to other fiber types.
The following symbols are used herein:
a: core radius of the fiber.
xcex: free-space wavelength; most calculations will use xcex=1100 nm (a typical value for Yb-doped fiber).
nij: index of refraction; used with a subscript, i, to define the polarization state and superscript, j, to define the medium (e.g., nxcore is the index of refraction of x-polarized light in the fiber core); explicit definitions will be given in the text.
NA: numerical aperture; related to the acceptance angle of the fiber by NA=sin xcex8max, where xcex8max is the maximum angle of incidence for a ray that will be guided by the fiber; for a step-index fiber, the NA is determined by the refractive indices of the core and cladding (ncore and nclad, respectively) according to NA=((ncore)2xe2x88x92(nclad)2)1/2.
V: fiber V-number (also called the xe2x80x9cnormalized frequencyxe2x80x9d); V=2xcfx80NA a/xcex. V is useful for characterizing the guiding properties of a fiber and is a critical parameter in specifying the fiber design for the present invention. A step-index fiber is single-mode for V less than 2.405.
LP01: the fundamental (lowest-order) mode of a fiber, and the only guided mode for a single-mode fiber, consists of two, nearly linearly polarized states (generally referred to as x-polarized and y-polarized).
xcfx890: the mode-field radius for the LP01 mode, measured at the 1/e2 power density.
xcex94ni: difference in the refractive index (e.g., xcex94nxy for the difference in index between x-polarized and y-polarized light); again, a superscript may be used to indicate the medium, and explicit definitions will be given below.
Lb: beat length (the length of birefringent fiber over which the x- and y-polarized modes experience a phase shift of 2xcfx80); Lb=xcex/xcex94nxy, i.e., the beat length is inversely proportional to the fiber birefringence. Beat lengths will be given at xcex=633 nm unless otherwise noted.
Other definitions will be introduced in the text as needed. Units of dB will generally be used to express the ratio of two optical powers, e.g., the extinction ratio in dB between the x- and y-polarized modes (with powers Px and Py, respectively) is given by xe2x88x9210 log(Py/Px).
Passive Fibers
A xe2x80x9cperfectxe2x80x9d optical fiber, with no internal or externally applied stresses, will not be birefringent and will maintain the polarization state of light injected into the core. Any real fiber has birefringence from stresses developed in the manufacturing and subsequent handling (including bending or coiling) of the fiber. Because of this birefringence, light injected into the fiber will not maintain its polarization state, and the output polarization state will vary on the time scale over which the mechanical and thermal environment changes (S. C. Rashleigh, J. Lightwave Technol. 1, 312 (1983)). A linear polarizer placed after the fiber will ensure linear polarization but will cause power fluctuations as the output polarization state varies. Similarly, polarization controllers can convert a given elliptical polarization state to linear polarization, but they require adjustment as the output polarization changes.
Extensive research during the 1980""s led to the development of passive polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber, in which a relatively large, stress-induced, linear birefringence is frozen into the fiber during manufacture (J. Noda et al., J. Lightwave Technol. 4, 1071 (1986)). This birefringence is provided by the incorporation of stress elements or rods into the fiber cladding. The stress elements (often composed of borosilicate glass) have a different (usually larger) thermal expansion coefficient than does the surrounding cladding glass (generally silica, possibly doped with germanium, phosphorous, and other materials); as the fiber cools after being drawn, the different expansion coefficients cause stress to accumulate in the fiber, which induces linear birefringence. Linearly polarized light launched into the fiber with its polarization vector aligned either along or perpendicular to the stress rods (denoted x-polarized and y-polarized, respectively) will maintain its linear polarization state because the induced birefringence xe2x80x9coverwhelmsxe2x80x9d the other sources of birefringence. (An alternative approach uses an elliptical core, but this design is less popular because the core is not well matched to standard, circular-core fibers and because the output beam is elliptical.)
FIGS. 1A-1D show several designs of commercially available passive PM fiber. Beat lengths are typically in the range of 1 mm to 1 cm at xcex=633 nm (a standard wavelength at which to report Lb); the corresponding values of xcex94nxy are 6.33xc3x9710xe2x88x924 to 6.33xc3x9710xe2x88x925. (For comparison, typical fibers have an index difference between the core and the cladding (xcex94nc) that is a factor of xcx9c10 smaller than xcex94nxy: xcex94nc=2.2xc3x9710xe2x88x923 to 1.4xc3x9710xe2x88x922, corresponding to NA values of 0.08-0.20, respectively.) Lb values as low at 0.55 mm (xcex94nxy=1.2xc3x9710xe2x88x923) have been obtained using xe2x80x9cbow-tiexe2x80x9d stress elements (R. D. Birch et al., Electron. Lett. 18, 1036 (1982)). Recently, a highly birefringent xe2x80x9cphotonic crystalxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9choleyxe2x80x9d fiber has been reported, in which the cladding contained an array of air holes; a beat length of 0.42 mm at xcex=1540 nm (xcex94nxy=3.7xc3x9710xe2x88x923) was obtained, corresponding to Lb less than 0.2 mm at xcex=633 nm (A. Ortigosa-Blanch et al., Opt. Lett. 25, 1325 (2000)).
For many applications, fiber that supports only a single linear polarization state would be preferable. Such xe2x80x9cpolarizingxe2x80x9d (PZ) fiber has been demonstrated, although it is not as readily available as PM fiber. Obtaining PZ operation of a passive fiber entails introducing substantial loss for one linear polarization state (e.g., y-polarized) and relatively little loss for the orthogonal state (x-polarized). As discussed below, most PZ fibers are highly birefringent. FIG. 2A shows the refractive-index profile for a non-birefringent fiber and FIGS. 2B-2E show the refractive-index profiles for several possible designs of birefringent fiber; the birefringent designs lead to a number of mechanisms for excess loss of one polarization state. The demonstrated or suggested approaches to fabricating PZ fiber are as follows:
1) In FIGS. 2B and 2C, the birefringence is larger in the core than in the cladding, leading to a lower NA for y-polarized than x-polarized light. The lower-NA state is less strongly guided and is thus more susceptible to bend loss. The cause of this increased bend sensitivity is illustrated in FIG. 3, which shows the LP01 mode-field radius (xcfx890; expressed in units of the core radius, a) as a function of fiber V-number for a step-index fiber. Because both a and xcex are the same for x- and y-polarized light, the V-number is directly proportional to the NA. In the range of interest for single-mode fibers (V≈1-2.4), the lower-NA polarization state has a larger mode-field radius, resulting in a larger susceptibility to bend loss when the fiber is coiled. The polarization extinction ratio and the wavelength region in which strong preference for propagation of x-polarized light exists can be adjusted by varying the radius of curvature of the fiber (i.e., the diameter of the spool on which the fiber is wound); typically, PZ operation is obtained over an approximately 100 nm region when xcex is near 1000 nm. (M. P. Varnham et al., Electron. Lett. 19, 246 (1983); M. P. Varnham et al., Opt. Lett. 9, 306 (1984); K. Okamoto, Appl. Opt. 23, 2638 (1984); K. Okamoto, J. Lightwave Technol. 3, 758 (1985).)
2) In FIG. 2D, nycore and nyclad have been made equal, so the fiber is non-guiding for y-polarized light. This situation is ideal for obtaining PZ operation, but it is difficult to achieve in practice. (W. Eickhoff, Opt. Lett. 7, 629 (1982); A. W. Snyder and F. Rxc3xchl, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73, 1165 (1983).)
3) In FIG. 2E, the birefringence (xcex94nxy) is equal in the core and in the cladding; the x- and y-polarized states thus have the same NA and V-number. Nonetheless, the core will be xe2x80x9cleakyxe2x80x9d (i.e., will experience some radiation loss) for y-polarized light if the birefringence is sufficiently large. This loss arises because, in a nonplanar waveguide (such as a cylindrical fiber), the y-polarized mode has a small x-polarized component. This component xe2x80x9cseesxe2x80x9d the cladding index nxclad and experiences loss when nxclad is higher than the effective index of the y-polarized mode. For appropriate values of Vx and xcex94nxy, this loss is calculated to be substantial, leading to PZ operation (in general, the loss increases for decreasing Vx and for increasing xcex94nxy). In typical high-birefringence fibers, xcex94nxycore is larger than xcex94xyclad (K. Okamoto, Appl. Opt. 23, 2638 (1984)), so the refractive-index profile shown in FIG. 2E is less realistic than that shown in FIG. 2B; nonetheless, the leaky-mode mechanism can contribute to PZ operation. (A. W. Snyder and F. Rxc3xchl, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 73, 1165 (1983); M. P. Varnham et al., Electron. Lett. 19, 246 (1983).)
4) The above mechanisms for PZ operation can be implemented with refractive-index profiles other than step-index (e.g., graded-index or W-type profiles).
5) In a birefringent fiber whose core is surrounded by a ring with a depressed index of refraction (a W-type fiber), a xe2x80x9ctunnelingxe2x80x9d mechanism can occur, in which the lower effective index of the y-polarized mode causes it to be leaky (or unguided if its effective index drops below that of the cladding outside of the ring). This approach can provide PZ fibers with relatively broad wavelength coverage (J. R. Simpson et al., J. Lightwave Technol. 1, 370 (1983); R. H. Stolen et al., Electron. Lett. 24, 524 (1988); F. F. Rxc3xchl and D. Wong, Opt. Lett. 14, 648 (1989); K. Tajima et al., J. Lightwave Technol. 7, 1499 (1982); M. J. Messerly et al., J. Lightwave Technol. 9, 817 (1991)). In addition, the stress elements can be made absorptive to provide further polarization discrimination (K. S. Chiang, J. Lightwave Technol. 7, 436 (1989)).
6) Another approach for fabricating PZ fiber entails introducing an absorptive loss for one polarization state by placing a metal film on one side of the core or on opposite sides (but not surrounding the core). The metal film can be incorporated into the preform before drawing the fiber; alternatively, after drawing, the fiber cladding can be etched or polished off on one side (typically to within less than 1 xcexcm of the core) and a metal coating applied to the flat surface. Light polarized with its electric vector parallel to the metal surface experiences high loss, while light polarized perpendicular to the surface experiences little loss. (W. Eickhoff, Electron. Lett. 16, 762 (1980); P. Kornreich et al., Proceedings of the SPIE 2749, 11 (1996).)
7) A metal-clad fiber can also provide polarization discrimination based on the existence of a long-wavelength cut-off for the mode polarized perpendicularly to the metal film. The parallel-polarized mode has no such cut-off, resulting in a wavelength band in which only the parallel-polarization state is guided. (W. Eickhoff, Electron. Lett. 16, 762 (1980); T. Hosaka et al., Opt. Lett. 8, 124 (1983); T. Hosaka et al., J. Quantum Electron. 18, 1569 (1982).)
8) A birefringent crystal can be used to provide high loss for one polarization state. In this technique, the cladding is removed on one side of the fiber (as was mentioned for one implementation in point 6), and the crystal is pressed against the flat-polished surface. If the refractive index of the crystal is larger than the effective waveguide index for one polarization and less for the orthogonal polarization, the former polarization state will excite a bulk wave in the crystal and escape from the fiber while the latter polarization state will continue to be guided. (R. A. Bergh et al., Opt. Lett. 5, 479 (1980).)
In general, more than one of these mechanisms can contribute to PZ operation. For instance, in a highly birefringent fiber, the y-polarized mode may be leaky because of mechanism 3, and the loss can be increased via mechanism 1 by coiling the fiber around a spool of appropriate diameter.
Active Fibers
In an active or gain fiber, rare-earth ions (e.g., Er3+ or Yb3+) are doped into the fiber core. When optically pumped (typically using a diode laser), these fibers exhibit gain over a wavelength region characteristic of the rare-earth dopant. Rare-earth-doped fibers are used to construct lasers, amplifiers, and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) sources. Single-mode fibers, which support only LP01, are often (but not always) used because of their intrinsically high beam quality. (Rare Earth Doped Fiber Lasers and Amplifiers, edited by M. J. F. Digonnet (Marcel Dekker, New York, 1993); Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifiers, P. C. Becker et al. (Academic Press, San Diego, 1999).)
Double-clad (DC) fiber is a particularly useful type of rare-earth-doped fiber (L. Zenteno, J. Lightwave Technol. 11, 1435 (1993)). In a DC fiber, the core is surrounded by a larger, multimode inner cladding; the pump light is launched into the inner cladding (but absorbed only in the core), allowing the use of high-power, relatively inexpensive, multimode pump sources. Standard single-clad fiber may be used for applications requiring up to approximately 100 mW; for higher-power applications (up to over 100 W), DC fiber is generally used (although DC fiber may also be used for the lower-power applications).
As with passive fiber, rare-earth-doped fiber is generally birefringent and does not maintain or produce linearly polarized output. Two approaches to obtaining linear-polarization operation using non-PM, rare-earth-doped fiber are: (1) double passing the gain fiber using a Faraday mirror, which provides an output polarization orthogonal to the input polarization over the wavelength range that the Faraday mirror operates (I. N. Duling and R. D. Esman, Electron. Lett. 28, 1126 (1992)), and (2) tension coiling the gain fiber to induce birefringence (J. P. Koplow et al., Opt. Lett. 25, 387 (2000)). The former approach obstructs one end of the fiber and, because double passing is required, is incompatible with some configurations of the laser or amplifier (e.g., a ring cavity); moreover, use of a Faraday mirror decreases the threshold for nonlinear processes (which are often undesirable) by effectively increasing the amplifier length, reduces the stored energy by recirculating ASE, and encourages parasitic lasing by providing feedback at one end of the high-gain amplifier. The latter approach is not applicable to all gain fibers. In particular, low-NA fibers have limited bend radii (because of bend loss), which limits the maximum attainable birefringence; low-NA fibers are required for generation of high-peak-power, high-energy optical pulses and high-average-power, narrow-linewidth radiation.
Although passive PM fiber is widely available (as described above), there are few examples of rare-earth-doped PM fiber. The most widely available PM gain fiber is an Er-doped, single-clad fiber made by Fibercore (Southampton, England) that incorporates stress elements into the cladding. More recently, double-clad PM Yb-doped fiber has been reported; in this fiber, the stress elements were located in the inner cladding (D. A. V. Kliner et al., Opt. Lett. 26, 184 (2001)).
In all of the above cases, obtaining a linearly polarized output beam from a fiber laser, amplifier, or ASE source requires a linearly polarized seed beam and/or a polarizer. Direct generation of stable, linearly polarized output (without additional optical elements) requires PZ gain fiber, which is the subject of this patent.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a linearly polarized fiber amplifier.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method for producing linearly polarized light from a fiber amplifier.
Another object of the invention is to provide methods for fabricating linearly polarized fiber amplifiers.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art based on the teachings herein.
Rare-earth-doped fibers are described that exhibit significantly higher gain for one linear polarization state than for the orthogonal state when the fiber is optically pumped. Polarizing operation is obtained by appropriately choosing the fiber NA, core size, and birefringence, such that the two polarization states have substantially different V-numbers and different degrees of overlap with the rare-earth dopant.
A basic embodiment of the invention is a linearly polarized fiber amplifier (LPFA) formed from a length of fiber optic that includes a core and a surrounding cladding. The LPFA has a rare-earth dopant in either or both of the cladding and core and comprises a first V-number for a first linear polarization state and a second V-number for a second linear polarization state that is substantially orthogonal to the first linear polarization state. When optically pumped, the fiber optic exhibits preferential gain for the first linear polarization state rather than for the second linear polarization state.
The rare-earth dopant is confined to the core in most gain fibers, and thus, the overlap of the fundamental (lowest-order) mode-field distribution with the rare-earth dopant, and the optical gain, is a strong function of V in the range of interest. In an appropriately designed birefringent fiber, V can be different for orthogonally polarized light, leading to preferential gain for the polarization state which is more tightly confined to the core.
The rare-earth-doped fiber may be single-clad or double-clad and the core may be single mode or multimode. If multimode, various approaches may be employed to achieve single-transverse-mode operation. The fiber may be silica-based or may be comprised of any other glass or combination of glasses.